Recent Houston deaths add to domestic violence statistics

Julia Green visited a friend for a couple of hours late one day last week and told her she was scared to go home because her boyfriend would get angry for her having been out so long.

Fifteen minutes later she was dead in her northwest Houston apartment. The friend would tell authorities she had seen the boyfriend assault her friend before and that he was "very controlling" toward her, court records show.

On Thursday, a domestic argument in north Houston ended in tragedy after a 24-year-old man shot his 26-year-old wife and then killed himself, police said.

While the deaths of six members of a Spring family last week - allegedly at the hands of a relative's ex-husband - caught national attention, the two recent cases are part of an all too common problem of domestic violence, local abuse victims advocates and law enforcement said.

"It happens every day and in every part of our community," said Sheryl Johnson, director of the Northwest Assistance Ministries' Family Violence Center at a news conference Thursday.

In 2012, for example, 198,504 people in Texas were involved in 198,366 incidents of family violence, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety crime report.

That same year, 114 women (and 15 witnesses or bystanders) were killed in domestic violence related deaths, according to a separate report from the Texas Council on Family Violence.

Murder-suicides made up about 40 percent of those deaths, according to the council's report.

Or for legal assistance, call Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse: 713-224-9911

In Thursday's murder-suicide, investigators called to a home on Berry Road found the bodies of Candace Williams, 26, and Phillip Deckard, 24, with gunshot wounds to the head.

Police said Deckard shot Williams, before turning the gun on himself after they argued. Neighbors told reporters three children were home when the gunfire erupted.

According to the council's 2012 report, 30 women died in Harris County, the most of any county in Texas that year.

The previous year, the group reported 102 women had been killed, 23 in Harris County. Both years were improvements over 2010, when 142 women across the state died in domestic-violence related incidents.

Victims reluctant

Susan Clifton, assistant chief for investigations at the Pasadena Police Department, said after the news conference that one of the most difficult parts of policing domestic violence cases is persuading a victim to participate in the investigation.

Police will often move forward with the investigation and bring evidence to the district attorney, even without the victim's involvement, Clifton said. But the case is more difficult to prosecute.

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"I think once the event has stopped and the person feels safe, the person often gives the offender another chance, and another, and another," Clifton said.

Green died after what appeared to be a tumultuous relationship with Leonard Keith Dawson, 24, the father of her young son.

A neighbor said the couple fought frequently.

Neighbor's view

Eric Givens, who is retired, said the couple has lived next door to him for about two years.

"They used to fight all the time," Givens said. "I suggested to her that she go somewhere else, because he seemed like he had some screws loose in his head."

Givens said Dawson was aggressive. Several times when Givens was leaving his apartment, he would see Dawson open his door and poke his head out with a gun. Givens said Dawson also threatened him once when he asked the 24-year-old to keep the noise down. "He said to me, 'Mr. Eric, if I didn't respect my elders, I might do something about you,' " Givens said.

Givens said he twice called police about the couple fighting; once, when he said Dawson would not let Green into the apartment to see her son, and another time he said Green attacked Dawson with a knife.

But on the night of July 11, that anger apparently boiled over soon after she returned home from her friend's apartment. Both lived in the same complex on West Little York Road.

Police found Green's body sprawled on the floor, a gunshot wound through her neck, and a Taurus .38 revolver next to her body, court documents show.

Dawson told police she had killed herself, but police found a bullet casing in his pocket and inconsistencies in his story, a court record shows. He has been charged with murder.

In the Spring case, Stephen and Katie Stay and four of their five children were shot and killed July 9 at their home. Their eldest daughter survived. Authorities charged Ronald Lee Haskell, 33, of Utah, who came to their home looking for his ex-wife, Katie Stay's sister.